


the truth we both know

by skuls



Series: Emily AU [2]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Season 9 AU, angst fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-19
Updated: 2017-04-22
Packaged: 2018-10-21 01:36:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10675008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skuls/pseuds/skuls
Summary: Scully deals with newly single parenthood and the fall out from Mulder going on the run.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this is basically just... season 9 but emily's there. warnings for some events of the episodes existence and nothing important happened today part i.  
> i already have this entire story drafted so it should be up within a couple of days! (i'm posting it segments cause it long.)

The pain washes over her in waves, Mulder and Monica's voices blurring with the faces of strangers. Mulder's hand is wrapped around her ankle, fingers leaving warm lines on her sweaty skin as he stands in front of them protectively, one hand over the butt of his gun. Clutched protectively to her chest, their son wails incessantly. 

_ I'm not going to let you take him,  _ she tries to say. This seems fairly obvious - the people will have to go through Mulder and Monica to get to them, but there are many of the strangers and three of them protecting the baby, and she is so wracked with pain that she won't be much protection. She hates this weakness, inability to be a mother. She thinks, helplessly, of their daughter, far away with her mother. She wants to be back at home - in their apartment, the sunny space that she and Mulder and Emily picked out together, that is entirely  _ theirs,  _ where nothing bad has ever happened and the baby's room is ready and she has her gun drawn and can protect them all. Here, she is helpless and exposed in this tiny, dirty house. 

Their son cries, and the strangers begin to retreat. Mulder squeezes her ankle, and rounds the bed to sit beside her gently. She winces a little at the motion of the mattress but sags gratefully against him. “They're leaving,” Mulder whispers. “You're both safe, Scully.” He presses a kiss to her head. 

She blinks back tears of relief. “Look at him, Mulder,” she whispers back. “He's so beautiful.” Awkwardly, terrified of hurting him, she shifts the baby between them so that they are both cradling him. The palm of Mulder's hand cups his downy head, his thumb stroking the baby's small forehead. 

“We did it,” Mulder says in complete wonder, finger tracing the side of the baby's face. “We really did it.”

Scully laughs a little, leaning her head on Mulder's shoulder in her complete fatigue. “You think Emily will be disappointed it's not a sister?”

“She's going to love him no matter what,” Mulder says, eyes glued to the baby. 

“Mulder! Dana!” Monica waves at them from the doorway, cell phone in hand. “John's on his way in a helicopter. We should have you to the hospital in no time.”

Scully nods her thanks wearily. They'll get out of here, they'll be okay. 

Mulder kisses her hair again. “You should get some rest,” he whispers. “I’m going to go wrap him up, okay? Maybe see if I can clean him up a little.”

“Okay,” she says, but she is almost unwilling to let go of the baby. Her finger runs up his soft arm. “Bring him back after, okay?”

“He'll be okay, Scully. I promise.” Mulder lifts the baby from her arms gently, cradling him like he's made of china, like he might break. He looks almost frightened, brushes sweaty strands of hair from her forehead and turns away tentatively. 

She touches his elbow as he passes. “Mulder?” she whispers. “For a name, I was thinking about… William. For our fathers.”

His eyes soften as he looks down at her, smiling at the baby. “William,” he repeats. “It fits.”

///

The next day, they're in a hospital and she's gotten enough sleep to make her feel halfway human again, and Mulder has the nurses bring William to her hospital room. She's more than relieved to see him again, had that brief, fleeting maternal panic that hasn't quite vanished since that first moment she went into the Sims’ house to arrest Marshall Sim. 

Her mother and Emily show up almost an hour later, Emily sprinting down the hall, sneakers squeaking on the tiles, an old jacket of hers flopping around her. “Mommy! Are you okay? Is the baby here?” She stops in her tracks at Mulder's small warning look and a minuscule shake of the head, opting to throw her arms around him instead. Her mother stands in the doorway, both hands over her mouth and eyes on the baby. 

“I'm fine, sweetie,” Scully says. She has a giant smile on her face and doesn't care at all. “C’mere and meet your brother. You can sit beside me on the bed if you're gentle.”

Her mother makes a small squeaking sound. “Brother?” Emily asks as she pulls away from Mulder and comes over to the hospital bed. She'd wanted a sister, talked about it incessantly for the entire pregnancy. (Scully had secretly wanted a boy, had never told her.) She clambers up on the bed, leaning into Scully's side. Mulder pulls her shoes off and sets them on the floor, kissing the top of her head. 

“Yeah, a brother,” Scully says softly. “Emily, this is William.” 

Behind Mulder, her mother sobs into her hands. Emily studies William, an unreadable look on her face. “Want to hold him?” Scully asks, and she nods, holding her arms in the cradle that they'd taught her. (She'd pulled an old baby doll out of her toy trunk and practiced, insisting on doing it for five minutes every day for the last month of her pregnancy and making one of them “supervise” her.) Quietly admonishing her to be careful, Scully eases the baby into Emily’s arms, curling one arm around hers to help support his head. Emily strokes his head gingerly with her pointer finger, leaning closer until their noses almost touch. ( _ They have the same eyes,  _ Mulder mouths to her, and they do.) William fusses a little, kicking his tiny feet, but he doesn't cry. Emily grins, suddenly. “I think he looks like Mulder,” she says confidently. 

“Really?” Mulder says. “I thought he looked a little like Mr. Skinner.”

Scully can hear the choked sound her mother makes through Emily’s giggles, and motions with her free hand for her to join them. “Come in, Mom, and meet your grandson.”

Mulder lifts the baby gently from Emily’s arms and hands him to her mother, who isn't full-on sobbing anymore but is still crying silently. “He's so beautiful,” she says softly, rocking William gently. 

“I know,” Scully says, accepting Emily’s embrace. “I still can't believe it.” She isn't far off from crying herself. Mulder wraps an arm around the two of them and kisses Emily’s head again, then hers. 

“Aunt Monica said she'd protect you guys,” Emily says seriously. “And she did. I should write her a thank you note.”

Mulder laughs breathlessly into Scully's hair. “That's a good idea, sweetie, you're very thoughtful,” she says, trying not to laugh herself. It might not be an entirely foreign idea to someone who doesn't almost die a lot; if they're writing thank-yous for life saving, she and Mulder owe each other about a million. It registers, suddenly, with Mulder and Emily pressed against her side and her mom off to the side, murmuring to her son: they're finally safe. 

Her mother lowers William back into her arms, and she cuddles him gratefully. Emily tickles his foot gently, cooing to him in the same voice she uses for Matthew and the neighbor's dog. Her mother kisses her on the top of the head. “I'm so glad you're okay, baby,” she says softly, stroking her cheek. “You too, Fox.”

“Thank you,” Mulder says, somewhere between bemused and humbled. 

William seems to have dozed off in her arms, tiny face peaceful. Scully strokes his cheek a little, more content then she's been in a long time.

///

They're allowed to go home in a couple of days. Emily is wildly happy, hanging onto Mulder's hand the entire time and murmuring to William excitedly. Scully is mostly relieved to have an actual  _ bed _ to sleep in (hospital beds and rusty iron frames don't count), and is also excited  to show William his bedroom, even though he'll be sleeping in their room for a while longer and will have absolutely no idea what's going on. She gives him something of a tour of the small apartment when they get home, and he blinks blearily at the sight of the rooms.

After William goes to sleep that night, the three of them eat Chinese cross-legged on Scully's bed. “You look tired, Mommy,” Emily says, resting her head against Scully's bicep. She nods politely, stifling a yawn. 

“Mommy is tired,” Mulder says, pushing some hair behind Scully's ear. “She'll need to rest tomorrow, so you'll need to be quiet, okay?”

“Go for ice cream?” Emily asks around a mouthful of noodles. 

He shrugs. “Sure.”

“Yes,” she whispers gleefully. Scully smiles and kisses her head. 

Near them in the crib, William starts to fuss. “Oh, god,” Scully murmurs, eyes closing wearily.

“Here, I'll get him.” Mulder kisses her forehead before getting up from the bed.

She smiles, slipping back against the pillows. “You're being unusually sweet,” she says. Emily curls up beside her, nuzzling her head under her shoulder. 

“Hey, you  _ grew _ a human inside of you for nine months. I do what I can.”

“When you say it like that, it sounds like an X-File.”

Mulder turns, astonished - of the two of them, he is the one more likely to make X-Files jokes. Scully smirks at him. 

“You're an X-File, Will!” Emily coos affectionately. “I'm an X-File, too.”

More of a sensitive subject. “I was kidding, Em,” Scully says lightly, looping an arm around her thin shoulders.

“I wasn't.” She throws her arms wide across the bed. “This whole  _ family  _ is an X-File. It's cool!”

“Yes. Cool. That's the word for it.” Scully pokes her in the side. “You've been spending too much time with Mulder.”

Emily giggles. From outside, Mulder says, “I heard that!”

Scully chuckles, letting her eyes close in exhaustion. Minutes or hours later, the weight of Emily against her side is gone and Mulder presses a light feather kiss to her forehead. “Sleep well, Scully,” he murmurs. “You deserve it.”

///

Two long, stretching, lazy days later, Scully is woken from her nap on the couch with William by the phone. “Mulder,” Mulder answers in his I’m-never-getting-out-of-the-work-phase-even-though-I’m-clearly-not-working voice. She relaxes, nestling William's head under her chin. “Deputy Director Kersh, nice to hear from you.” A blatant lie - it comes out awkward and disjointed and slightly annoyed, a clear attempt at acting - but he is trying. Scully smirks against William's downy head. More annoyed: “Can't it wait? I'm on paternity leave.” A pause and then: “Yes, fine. I'll be in in thirty minutes.” He slams down the phone and curses under his breath.

“Language,” Scully says, eyes still closed.

“Em’s reading in her room and Will can't even understand me.”

She opens her eyes. “It's the principle of things. What's up?”

Mulder sits on the couch beside her hip, running a finger over William's soft cheek. The baby makes soft sounds in his sleep. “Kersh wants me to come in for some fuck-all meeting.” He rolls his eyes. “Want me to call your mom?”

“No,” she says sleepily, shifting William into the curve of her arm. “I got it. Did he say what was going on?”

“No, only that it was important.” He kisses her forehead. “I'll be back soon, okay?”

“At least you're not running after some X-File,” Scully murmurs, closing her eyes again.

The door to the apartment opens. He sounds slightly hurt when he says, “Scully. I hope you know me better than that.”

///

Mulder still hasn't returned at bedtime (or at least bedtime for a newborn and a very sleepy new mother). Scully puts William down, kisses Emily good night and tells her she'll send Mulder in to read her a story, and crawls into bed to wait for him. She's nearly dozed off by the time their door opens. “Hey,” she says, lazily and hushed in an attempt not to wake Will. “You have to read Emily a story.”

He doesn't answer right away so she sits up and gets a good look at him. Fear immediately clenches her; he looks awful, like he's been crying. “Mulder, what happened?”

He takes a shaky breath, sitting beside her on the bed. “Kersh told me that there are threats on my life,” he says. “That he recommends I disappear because if I stay here they'll kill me.”

Her eyes widen. “Mulder,” she whispers, reaching for him. He buries his face in her neck, taking ragged breaths, and she strokes his hair in an attempt to pull herself together.  _ God,  _ she thinks.  _ Oh my god. Don't take him from me now.  _

His nose presses into her collarbone. “And just when we thought everything would be okay,” he mumbles against her skin.

She strokes his hair again, trying to compose herself. God, she doesn't want to say it but she has to say it. She'll lose him if she doesn't say it. “You need to go.”

He lifts his head, staring at her incredulously. She cups his cheek with one hand, willing him to understand.  _ Mulder, please. Please don't make this harder. _

“Scully…” he starts.

“I can't lose you,” she whispers. “You have to go. You can't stay here, you have to disappear. You have to leave.”

He wraps both arms around her, holding her close. “I don't want to go,” he says into her shoulder. 

She wraps an arm around his back. “I know,” she whispers, blinking back tears. She will not let her voice tremble. “I know. You have to. You don't have a choice.”

“But the kids.”

“It's only for a little while, they'll be fine.” She doesn't know that she'll be fine, but she doesn't say anything. She kisses his temple. “It'll be worse if they have to grow up without a father.”

He lifts his head and looks up at her with wet eyes, looks like he wants to say something, but the baby starts crying before he can. “I'll get him,” he says softly, getting out of bed. What they're both thinking goes unspoken: this could be his last chance for a while. 

Scully curls into his empty pillow, half burying her face in it as she watches him pace the room with William. She closes her eyes against the burn of tears. She cannot cry. She will not.

Mulder changes William while Scully loses the battle against crying and wipes her eyes on the pillowcase. When he returns to bed, her eyes are red and puffy but dry. She expects him to reach for her, but he settles on his side of the bed without looking at her. “I can't leave them,” he says.

She swallows roughly.  _ He didn't say “you”.  _ “Mulder, listen. Listen.” She reaches for his hand and he lets her take it, though he doesn't look at her. “We're coming to come after you, okay? When William's old enough… when we can travel safely… we can disappear.”

“What kind of life is that?” he hisses. “And besides that, how do you know they won't go after you and the kids, to draw me out? How do you know we'll be safe?”

“I don't,” she says. “But I know we'll be together someday. We'll be safe.”

Mulder's jaw clenches, unclenches. “Okay.” He stands, letting her hand slip out of his.

“Where are you going?”  _ God, he wouldn't walk out now, would he, not until…  _

“I'm going to read Emily a story.” He lets the door thump closed behind him.

Scully collapses against the pillows and lets herself cry. Her hormones are all over the place, she gave birth not even a week ago, and this is the only time she will allow herself to cry. She has to be the strong one.

Mulder returns a half hour later, eyes rimmed with red. He picks up William and leaves the room again. When he comes back, he turns on his side in bed, facing away from her. She reaches out to touch him, but stops herself. If this is what it takes to make him leave, then so be it. 

Scully tries to get up, automatically, every time William wakes up, but Mulder does before she can. (“You'll get to do this every time from now on,” he says, wearily, the second time. “Let me.”

“You're not leaving forever,” she says fiercely. 

“We don't know that,” he says.)

(Neither of them sleep.)

///

Mulder showers the next morning, and she paces the living room, trying not to cry again and praying Emily doesn't wake up. 

He slouches in the doorway before he leaves, eyes tired and pleading. “You know I don’t want to leave you, right?” he says, thumb tracing her jawline. 

It's the first affection he's shown her since last night. She might fall apart. “I know,” she says softly. “You have to. You have to.”

She wants to grab on and pull him back into the apartment, tell him to keep an eye on the kids while she figures out breakfast, watch a bad sci-fi movie and fall asleep on the couch, fight over who is going to get William when he cries in the night. She wants to follow him. She moves his hand away from her face.

Emily would cry, and cling to him, and beg him not to go. “Maybe I should wait until she gets up,” he says. His hair is still dripping, and it's still early morning.

“No,” she says. If Emily gets up, he’ll never leave. “She won’t understand. It’s better if I just explain it to her.”

“Tell her I love her,” he says, and then he says, “Wait, no, don’t tell her that.” He’s still afraid of overstepping even after all this time.

“I’ll tell her,” she said. “William, too.”

“You know I…” He blinks hard, wiping his eyes. “I'm sorry I was distant, last night. It's just…”

“Shh,” she whispers. She leans forward and kisses him so she doesn't tell him to stay. His fingers curl into her shirt, pulling her closer, and he doesn't let go when she pulls away. She pries his hands off, kisses his knuckles before letting them drop. 

She hands him his suitcase, and his hand covers hers on the strap. “I love you,” he says, voice trembling. 

She will not cry. She bites her lip so hard she draws blood. “I love you,” she whispers. She turns her palm upwards, squeezing his hand before slipping hers free. “Come back to us, okay?”

He draws her in, kissing her forehead for a long minute before he turns and walks down the hall, suitcase in hand. She watches him go, holding onto the door frame. 

He turns and gives a little wave at the elevator. She waves back.

///

She goes into Emily's room twenty minutes later, when she's sure she can talk without her voice cracking. Emily's awake but still in bed, reading by the little lamp. “Mommy!” she says, setting down  _ Beezus and Ramona _ . “Are Mulder and Will up?”

Scully gulps, sits on the bed by her daughter's feet. “Sweetie, can we talk for a minute?” 

Emily pales a little, face immediately changing to serious. “Okay,” she says, pushing her book away. She sounds grave; she recognizes when things are serious, through the years. It kills Scully that she does.

Scully reaches out to smooth her daughter's bed head, some small attempt at comfort. “Listen, Emily,” she says gently. “Your father had to… go away for a while.”

Emily pulls the bunny she's had since she came to DC into her arms, hugging it tightly. “Like on a vacation?” she asks softly. 

No need to worry her more. “Sort of.”

Emily rests her chin on the bunny's head. She looks very small. “When will he be back?”

Scully swallows. “I don't know.”

“A long time?”

“... yes,” she whispers. 

Emily's eyes brim over. She flops back against the mattress and pulls the covers over her head. 

“Listen, sweetie, listen,” Scully soothes, stroking Emily's hair through the comforter. “Mulder loves you very much. He wanted me to tell you that. He's going to miss you every minute that he's gone. And he's coming back someday, I promise.”

“It’s not fair,” Emily whimpers into her pillow. “Why'd he have to go? Why didn't you make him stay here?”

This resonates with her, a pang in her heart. “He had to,” she says, hushed.

Emily is crying, under the blankets. “I want him to come home,” she sobs. “Make him come home, Mommy.”

“I know you do.” She pulls the covers off of Emily's head. Emily blinks up at her with watery eyes and sniffles. “Hey, look at me.” She reaches out for Emily, to tip her chin up, and Emily scowls and scoots back away from her. Scully pretends this doesn't sting. “I'm so sorry, honey,” she says softly. “I'm so, so sorry.  But listen - hey, look at me, Em.” She tips Emily's chin up so that their eyes meet. Emily sniffs again, rubbing her eyes with her fists, but she doesn't pull away. 

“It's not forever,” Scully says softly. “We're gonna see him again. Okay?”

“Promise?” Emily says tearfully. 

She can't, really, but she does. “I promise.”

Emily rubs her eyes ardently before blinking up at her mother and finally leaping forward to hug her, wrapping her arms tightly around Scully's middle and banging her forehead against her collarbone. She's still crying, a wet stain forming at the hem of Scully's t-shirt. 

Scully feels herself starting to crumble at the edges. Emily was right; this isn't fair. It isn’t fair that Mulder has to leave three days after his son was born, isn’t fair that they're always in danger, isn’t fair that they never got very long to be happy, that there's always a catch. She starts to cry, tears trailing into her daughter's hair.

///

Emily spends most of the day reading or watching TV, goes to bed early. Scully is wrapped up in William, trying to distract herself from the harsh truth of their situation. 

She puts the baby down in the crib they'd put up in their room for the time being and crawls in bed alone. The sheets are cool. She curls on her side in the bed and tries to fall asleep.

The soft tinkling of William's mobile music rouses her.

She raises her head, startled, and turns on the lamp. William's mobile spins above his crib. But she'd never turned it on. 

Fingers pressed to her mouth, Scully climbs out of bed and creeps over to the crib. William is awake, looking up at the mobile. A floorboard creaks loudly under her foot, and William starts to cry. The mobile stops mid-turn with a loud squeak.

Terrified - irrational or not - Scully grabs the baby and rocks him back and forth gently. “Shh, shh,” she soothes, eyes darting from William to the mobile and back to William. “It's okay, it's okay. I'm here.”

William calms, cries slowing and stopping. She whispers to him softly, cupping his wispy head, and sits on the edge of the bed, exhausted. 

_ The mobile was moving on its own _ , she thinks.  _ Or… William was moving it. _

William yawns. Scully kisses his head, never taking her eyes off of the mobile. It remains, mercifully, still.

///

Her mother comes a few days later. Emily runs to hug her at the door and hangs off of her for most of the visit. Maggie offers to take the baby from Scully and give her some time to rest. Scully collapses gratefully in her empty bed and sleeps like the dead.

An indeterminate time later,  Emily is crawling into bed beside her. “Hmm, what time is it?” Scully mumbles  blearily. “Mulder…” she starts, before she remembers. 

“It's me, Mommy.” Emily slithers under the covers next to her. “Grandma is putting Will down, and she said I shouldn't bother you, but I missed you. Can I sleep in here?”

“Okay,” Scully murmurs, burying her face in the side of the pillow. Emily leans over and kisses her cheek before flopping back onto the bed beside her and sandwiching her hands under her cheek. 

Her mother comes in, then, with the baby. “Emily, I told you not to bother your mother,” she says sternly. 

“No, Mom, it's fine,” Scully says, sitting up. “How's William?”

“He's fine,” her mother says, handing her the baby. She cradles him close gratefully. “I was thinking of staying with you for a few days, Dana,” her mother adds softly, brushing her hand over Scully's head. “To help you out.”

If she wasn't so tired, she'd say no on pride alone. “That would be great, Mom, thanks,” Scully says, looking up from the baby to smile at her shakily. 

Her mother puts William to bed in the crib in Scully’s room at her request. She likes being able to know that both of her kids are safe. She waits, but the mobile doesn't move all night.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings for events/references to events of the episodes trust no 1, john doe, provenance/providence, jump the shark (altered events), william (altered events), and the truth.

Single motherhood of two children gets easier, or something akin to easier. Living without Mulder doesn't. He's been part of her routine for nine years now. A constant part of hers and Emily's lives for four. He's been living with them for over two. It's like a jagged part of herself has been carved out, with only hollow space left behind.

Emily adjusts. She gets sad sometimes, starts to call for Mulder or talk about something she wants to tell him before she remembers, a sadness falling over her face. But she is mostly just withdrawn. She spends a lot of time reading - more specifically, reading Mulder's books in the bookshelf. (Scully has to take a few away from her, but she lets her keep most of the ones about research on Bigfoot or something like that.) She plays with William, singing to him or dangling the car keys over his head. 

Doggett and Monica are irregular appearances in their lives. Emily adores them, calls them Uncle John and Aunt Monica - a relic from their brief partnership with Mulder on the X-Files. (They'd called after Mulder left with a strange case, wanting to see Mulder, and it had eventually come out that Mulder had left and why. Doggett had come over with the case results - super soldiers and experiments and mutations. Scully had refused to get involved besides providing information - she can't put herself in danger, not when she's all the kids have - but she agreed to answer the phone when they need it. Doggett had given her a hug at the door and told her that he was sure Mulder would be fine in the end, he seemed to have a knack for close calls. She'd laughed a little and thanked him.) They come over to update Scully on anything they've found related to William or Mulder or the super soldiers or the remnants of the Syndicate, which isn't much. Scully is fine with that, as long as They leave her family alone. Maybe They'll back off of Mulder and he can come home.

School starting shakes Scully to the core. Up until then, she's been able to easily keep both of her kids safe, but with Emily gone for seven and a half hours a day, she has no way to protect her. Still, she has to go; the apartment is too small for a six-year-old with an absent stepfather and a stressed, worried mother with a new baby.

Her mother offers to babysit William during Emily's open house, and while it makes Scully nervous, she agrees. She drives Emily to her red-brick elementary school and sits beside her in a tiny first-grade-size desk. Emily colors on the first page of her notebook while the teacher talks, and it seems ridiculous but she looks very grown up there. She clusters with her friends by the whiteboard after the meeting is over, giggling and drawing with the dry-erase markers. 

(Scully gives the teacher her personal phone number and asks her to call if anything - even something small - goes wrong with Emily. The teacher doesn't seem to think this is an usual request, but she's taken aback by the intensity she sees on Scully's face. “Of course, Ms. Scully,” she says, writing her name and number down on a Sticky Note on her desk and sticking it on the bottom of her computer.)

Emily is quiet when they leave the classroom, staring at the ground. Scully reaches down and takes her hand. “You looking forward to school?” she asks, swinging their hands between them. 

“Uh-huh.” Emily kicks a discarded penny on the ground. “Nikki said I was lucky to have a little brother and she wants to see him.”

“Hmm, maybe we can go to the park someday.”

“Okay.” Emily is playing with the hem of her sweater, still looking at the ground. 

Scully brushes a hand over Emily's bright head. “Is something wrong, sweetie?” 

She looks up. “Amy told me her daddy left after her little sister was born. And they never saw him again.”

“Oh, sweetie.” Scully tucks her hair behind her ear. Emily sniffles. “Sometimes people go away and never come back,” she says, carefully. “But you know Mulder isn't like that.”

“My first parents weren't like that. They never came back.”

Scully bites her lip. “Yes, sweetie, but they passed away. This is different.”

“How do you know Mulder hasn't passed away?” 

A lump forms in her throat, and she swallows hard against it.  _ I don't.  _ “I just know,” she says instead. “It's going to be okay.” She leans down to kiss Emily's forehead. 

Emily nods like she understands, but she doesn't say anything. She fiddles with her hard plastic headband, finally yanking it out. The tiny teeth pull hairs awry, and the bangs fall down into her eyes. She twists it in her hands contemplatively. 

Scully sighs. She doesn't know how many other ways to say she's sorry. She offers to take her out for ice cream instead, but it's so clearly a Mulder move that Emily shakes her head. They drive back to the apartment in silence. 

Her mother goes back to Baltimore after a few days at Scully's own insistence. Emily sleeps over at Nikki’s house the weekend after the first week of school, and even though Scully knows Nikki’s parents well and she feigns acceptance and security, she doesn't sleep that night. She sits up with William, the phone right by her side and the gun on the coffee table.

///

She almost hates him some days. She'll be sitting in bed in a brief moment of peace, trying to read or work on her lesson plans for when she'll head to Quantico or do  _ anything _ but think about the mess that is her life, and she'll be filled with an undeterred loathing.  _ How dare he do this to us, _ she'll think. He leaves and leaves behind the rubble of her relationship with her daughter. His absence makes her feel guilty for taking pictures of William growing, for enjoying their son's milestones without him, and it is unfair because she has wanted this for years. He leaves and leaves her empty, leaves her to pick up the pieces. She hates him for this some nights, and then she remembers she made him leave. But they would've lost him either way; she would have been broken either way. At least now she may see him again.

It's the other nights that she misses him so much she can't breathe. There are much more of those.

She receives an email from him in October while she works and Emily does her homework at the kitchen. She checks her covert email address, the unprofessional one matching the one Mulder had made, with the ridiculous names. It's alternately meant to throw off the Consortium or completely fool them. But either way, Mulder's email pops up in her inbox, and when she clicks on it, a nonsense email (at least for the situation) pops up. It's in code, the one they'd made up in case of danger after they'd had to go on the run with Emily, after the original Consortium went up in the flames. (They'd lain in her bed together for the first times and made up a cryptic language across her pillows. Later, after Parenti and the alien baby, after Scully had left the X-Files, they'd practiced it again [“Just in case,” Mulder had whispered, and she'd wanted to cry], whispering in bed so anyone who might be listening couldn't hear, Mulder's hand on her stomach.)

Scully almost spills her coffee when she sees it. She scrambles to remember the code, phrases flying up at her like a flipbook, and finally gets out a pad of paper and transcribes the message. Emily watches, eyes wide. “Mom? What's going on?”

(The Mom thing is new, and Scully doesn't know how she feels about it. Part of her wants Emily to be a little girl forever.) 

“Mulder's…” she whispers, taking a shaky breath.  _ Alive. Mulder's alive. _ They can't hear her, can they? “Mulder says hi.”

Emily's face lights up, and she leaps to her feet, sending crayons rolling. “Is he coming home?” she practically shouts.

She decides that they aren't listening, shakes her head regretfully. “No, sweetie, not yet. I'm sorry.”

Emily's face falls, right back down from whatever high place she was briefly on, and she rests her chin on her forearms gloomily. Scully's stomach twists and she leans forward to kiss her temple before turning back to the email transcript. Her writing is smudgy and frantic, and she wants to keep it but knows there is no way she can; it doesn't say where he is, but still. What if they find it? She reads it three more times before crumpling it and dropping it in the fireplace, a benefit of their new apartment that Mulder's inheritance is paying for. (He insisted, and she figured they wouldn't be here long enough for it to manner. She is saving her money in a false account for when they run.) “Do you want to say anything back to him?” she asks Emily. 

“Tell him I love him and miss him and want him to come home.” Emily slides off the chair. “I'm gonna go read.”

Scully types back the garbled response and presses Send, pressing her forehead into the edge of the table, heavy with relief and worry and sadness. She sits there for a minute before heading after Emily. Her daughter is curled into the corner of her bed with Mulder's dog-eared  _ True Ghost Stories  _ paperback. Scully climbs in bed beside her, pulling the flowery comforter over her lap, and Emily says nothing but nestles her head on her mother's shoulder.

///

The replying email from Mulder isn't in code, and some kind of bile rises in her throat; she is terrified. She writes a terse, coded reply before everything goes to hell. 

She doesn't tell Emily that Mulder may be coming back, and she's glad of it after what happens in the quarry. False hope wouldn't be good, especially after everything with Patti (she'd slept through the majority of the drama, but had gazed suspiciously at her the entire time) and then her shipping them off to her mother's for a weekend while she drove all over creation for false leads. 

She'd leave them at her mother's if she thought she could stand another night alone in their apartment. (She thought she'd have Mulder with her.) She drives to her mother's homey little house that is perfect for grandchildren and rings the doorbell. Her mother comes down in a robe and nightgown. “Dana? Is everything okay?” she asks, concerned, knotting her robe strings. She's seemed to be in a constant worried state since Mulder left. 

“Fine,” Scully lies. “I'm just…” Impending tears prick the back of her eyes and she closes them. “I'm here to get the kids,” she says, voice cracking. 

Her mother holds out her arms, and Scully almost falls into them. It's been a long time since she cried in front of her mother, but she allows herself this one small weakness. “Dana,” her mother soothes, stroking her hair. “Shh. It's late. Why don't you come inside and go to bed?”

Scully sleep like the dead in her mother's guest room and eats pancakes with her kids the next morning at her kitchen table. Emily seems surprised to see her, but she gets up to give her a hug anyway. Maggie encourages her to stay longer, but she insists. She checks her email as soon as she gets home: nothing.

She writes an email on her laptop, doesn't bother with the code. She's confused about their change in communication, but can deal with it. She just wants to know he's okay. 

His reply comes a few days later, from an obscure email address in the code, confusing to the point that she almost deletes it until she realizes and decodes it in a shaking hand.  _ I didn't write those emails. I wasn't on that train. I'm worried about you and the kids. I think we shouldn't talk for a while, at least until I can figure out what's going on. Talking to Gunmen.  _

She writes back furiously in code:  _ Mulder, goddammit, you are not going to do this. I'm sorry, but I need you. The kids need you. Do not stop emailing me. We can figure this out, we've been preparing to disappear. Monica and John and the Gunmen can help us. Please don't do this. _

He never answers. When Emily asks about Mulder, Scully can't keep the bite out of her voice. Eventually, she stops asking.

///

John disappears to Mexico with amnesia and Monica goes to get him. He sleeps on her couch for three days when they return. Scully takes Emily to go and visit him. John lights up a little when Emily brightly greets him and offers to play her in checkers. (“I dreamed about my son, in Mexico,” he tells her later. “Emily's… about the same age as he was.” Scully nods sympathetically and pretends her stomach doesn't clench at the thought of losing her daughter. She can't imagine.)

Emily's birthday comes later and Scully tries her best to throw her a nice party, recruits her mother and the Gunmen and Monica to help. Emily's friends from school come over and want to play with the baby and have a tea party (which Emily seems slightly skeptical of but goes along with). One of her friends has apparently figured out the FBI thing because she interrogates Scully with her head inquisitively tipped to the side. Holding William on her hip, she struggles to create a somewhat G-rated version of her career. Disappointed at the lack of gore, the girl tropes back over to the kitchen table and plastic cups of water/tea, and she and Emily whisper fiercely together and largely don't participate in the tea party. Scully smiles affectionately. 

That night, there is a conspicuous envelope in the mailbox with  _ Emily Scully _ scrawled on the front in Mulder's left-handed handwriting (the one he uses when he's trying to disguise it, but Scully knows). Inside, there's a card signed  _ Mr. Potato Head  _ and a small, smudgy Polaroid of the Grand Canyon _.  _ Emily tacks it up on her corkboard even though Scully wants to tell her not to. Inside, she is full of rage. She is glad he found a way to offer some small comfort to Emily, but she wants him to answer his email. She's been sending them every week. 

At the end of the day, the living room is a cemetery for discarded party decorations and Emily is curled in the corner of the couch reading her new birthday books. Scully sits beside her and kisses the top of her head. “Did you have a good birthday, sweetie?” 

“Mm-hmm.” Emily sets the book upside down on the arm of the couch. “It was a fun party, and I love Mulder's card. Is he still at the Grand Canyon? Can we go see him?”

“Hopefully someday,” Scully says carefully. She has arrangements in place for them to disappear at a moment's notice but is hesitant to do it yet. William is still so little. And she still has no idea where Mulder is, or how to find him. She doesn't want to blindly stumble into a covert lifestyle. She wants to figure it out, if only Mulder would email her back. 

Emily nods. A moment later, she crawls into Scully's lap, resting her head on her shoulder. Scully smiles, adjusting her so that her elbow doesn't jab into her ribs. “You're getting too big for this,” she says softly. 

“Not yet,” Emily says stubbornly, and Scully finds herself agreeing: she isn't too big yet.

///

Thanksgiving and Christmas come, quiet and uneventful outside of the presents Mulder mails. William grows clingier, crying at unfamiliar people holding him; he's inclined towards Scully or Emily or Maggie, but seems fond enough of Monica. Emily will usually offer to watch William while Scully catches up on work; she'll hold him on her lap and read to him, or watch cartoons, whispering to him in a soft voice. 

The days of Christmas break melt into each other; Scully doesn’t have to teach and Emily doesn’t have to go to school so they spend their days at home. Emily plays with William or reads; Scully pretends she doesn’t miss Mulder. She thinks they’re all pretending they don’t miss Mulder. She tries not to think about the fact that William wouldn’t recognize his father now.  

She is increasingly annoyed when Kersh calls to request a meeting. “I’m on leave for the holidays,” she snaps. “My daughter’s off school.” Her mother usually watches William while she's at work, but Scully feels like she's been asking too much of her lately. And she mostly just wants time with her kids.

Kersh is somewhat apologetic, to his credit. “We need to meet with you, Agent Scully. It’s important,” he tells her. So she goes, and hides her astonishment at what they show her. (“It’s related to something I found in Africa,” she’ll explain to Reyes later, who babysits the kids while she goes. She’s never said this to anyone, but she’s always suspected that the spaceship she’d found had played some sort of role in William’s conception. That these markings may be related to his… abilities, whatever they may be.) The possibilities are terrifying.

She doesn’t want to get involved but she does. She loves her son more than anything, but the strange occurrences are growing more and more terrifying and she's more scared for his safety than anything else. Things have a tendency to fall or fly across the room when his emotions are high. Emily had screamed, once, from the other room and she’d come running to find a toy hovering a few inches above the ground. Scully has no idea how to explain these things, and has no one to help her through it. (Although she’s almost glad Mulder isn’t here for this because she has no idea how he would take it. How he would react.) So when Doggett calls with new information, she goes despite her mother’s disapproval. (She says something that makes it sound like Scully doesn't love her kids and it cuts her right to the core. She's doing this  _ because  _ of how much she loves them.) But the lead is seemingly nothing, just details on a UFO cult. Disappointed, Scully leaves to go home to her kids and Monica hugs her at the door and promises they’ll call only if they find something connected to William from this point on. 

Her mother stays overnight and insists on feeding William in the morning. Scully isn’t sure if it’s some kind of passive-aggressive hint. “We’re out of milk,” she announces, closing the fridge. “Mom, you mind watching the kids while I run to the store?”

“Of course not, sweetie,” her mother says innocently, sticking an orange plastic spoon in William’s mouth. It’s an old guilt-trip trick from their childhood, pretending nothing is wrong, and it’s annoying as hell. Scully purses her lips, kisses sleepy, pajama-clad Emily and William on the heads, and leaves to go to the store. Of course, the closest one is closed so she has to drive twenty minutes out of her way.

When she gets home, almost an hour later, the door is ajar. Warning one. Her stomach thunks, and she pushes the door open a little. A chair in the living room is toppled, and there’s the sound of quiet sobbing and pounding from behind her closed bedroom door. “Mom?” Scully calls, fear rising in her throat. “Emily?”

“Mommy!” Emily shouts through the door. She hasn't called her Mommy in months. Scully sprints towards the door and rattles the knob; it's locked. 

Her mom is somewhat tossed out of William’s room, hitting the floor with a thunk. Scully rushes to her side in terror. “He wants to kill the baby!” 

Her pulse freezes. She fumbles for her gun, stumbles to her feet. William is in his crib. She moves towards him and the door hits her. She drops her gun with a clatter and a strange man scoops it up. She fights hard but he overpowers her, shoving her into the crib and then into the wall. William starts to cry. 

“No!” she screams, helpless now. Emily is still crying and pounding on the door from somewhere in the house. Oh god, did he hurt her, he will hurt William if she can’t get away. She twists her arm in his grasp. “No! Don't! Please! Don't!”

He grabs her other arm and thrusts her out of the door, shutting it hard behind her. She gets up and tries to break the door down, still shouting. “I'll kill you! I'll kill you if you touch my baby!”

“Dana!” her mother shouts behind her. She turns and sees her mother holding out a gun. Mulder’s gun. 

Scully grabs it in trembling fingers. “Check on Emily,” she says in a wavering voice, and her mother nods. Turning, Scully downs the door with one good kick.

The man is leaning over the crib (her  _ son _ , oh god, please, no) with a pillow in hand, turns when he hears the sound. She pulls the trigger three times, almost blind with rage. The man falls. 

She wants to kick him, hurt him, do terrible things. He was going to kill her son. But he is already bleeding on the floorboards and William is still crying, so she steps past him and pulls her baby up into her arms, holding him tightly. He wails over her shoulder and she presses her nose to his soft head, moving precariously towards the door. The man groans and she ignores it. 

“Mommy?” Emily’s feet pound the floorboards in the hall. “Mommy!”

Scully moves like a shield in the space of the doorframe, practically shouting, “Don’t let her come in here!” Emily skids to a stop, eyes wide and pale. She’s still in her pajamas, hair unbrushed, eyes red and cheeks wet. She hiccups, rubbing her left eye with her fist. Scully lets out a breath she didn’t know she was holding; the bastard didn’t hurt her daughter, thank god. “Are you okay?” she whispers and Emily nods, running and burying her face in Scully’s stomach, right below William’s feet. Emily cries and William cries and Scully cries, unable to hold it back. Unable to do anything but hold her son close with one arm and lower the other to her daughter’s head and sob. 

///

After Monica takes her mother and the kids out of the apartment, after the man - Comer - is taken to the hospital, Scully scrubs the blood from William’s floorboards. She opens her laptop and starts an email to Mulder, but is unable to finish it. She can’t find the words to gently explained what happened when what she really wants to say is,  _ you selfish fuck, why did you leave us, why won’t you email me back, our son almost died, our daughter was caught in the crossfire, we need you now _ . She has her gun back now but she doesn’t want to let go of his. She thinks she can feel his fingerprints, left behind like trace evidence, against her palms.

Kersh calls her in for another meeting, and all the pieces come together. There’s a UFO cult who wants Mulder dead. He might already be dead. Scully holds it together until the meeting is over before vomiting in the bathroom. She drives home, clenching the wheel tight enough so her hands don’t shake.

Monica brings the kids home and Emily runs through the door first, hugging Scully tightly around the waist. “Mommy,” she mumbles into her t-shirt. Scully hugs her tightly before letting go and turning to William. 

“Here’s your mommy,” Monica tells William cheerfully as she hands him over to Scully. She kisses his head, trying to even out her breathing, disguise her distress. Monica picks up on it, of course. “Dana, what’s wrong?” she asks softly.

Scully looks towards her daughter, who is watching them both with wide eyes. “Why don’t you go lie down, sweetie? I’ll be in to tuck you in soon, okay?” Emily nods, turning and running into her bedroom. She turns back to William, kissing his head again and again in some small attempt not to fall apart. Monica touches her arm gently. “It’s okay,” she whispers to William, though it’s not. 

“Just tell me what it is,” Monica says.

“It’s Mulder,” she breathes.

A sudden rattling from her bedroom makes her nearly jump out of her skin. William curls a hand into her hair and babbles in her ear, and Scully holds him closer. “It’s probably nothing,” Monica says gently, motioning to her door. “I’ll go check it out while you put him down, okay?”

Scully nods and carries William to his room, whispering to him as she puts him down and ignoring the sound of the rattling growing louder. “It’s okay,” she tells William again. “It’s o-” 

Something shoots past her, quickly, into William’s crib and she yelps in brief terror. But the thing - the artifact from the spacecraft - doesn’t hurt him; it hovers over him, spinning in a similar matter to the mobile. She stares, gaping.  _ My baby. _

“Dana?” Monica comes up behind her at the door. 

Afraid, Scully yanks the artifact out of mid-air and throws it across the room. It hits the floor and wall hard in a dusty corner, but doesn’t crack. She blinks back tears hard. “No,” she whispers. 

“Mommy?” Emily’s terrified voice rises up from down the hall. “What was that?”

Scully reaches down, touches William’s soft cheek. “I have to get him out of here,” she says softly. Mulder might be dead and her son is not normal. Her daughter isn’t, either. They’ll never be safe. “I have to hide him.”

Monica is astounded. “Dana, what do you mean?”

She turns. “Monica, I ask for too much and I'm so sorry, but I need your help,” she says. “Please.”

///

_ 12/30/01, 5:45 pm _

_ from: queequeg0925@hotmail.com _

_ to: georgehale@mail.com _

_ Mulder,  _

_ I would write this email in code, but by now I don’t see the point. Someone has tried to kill William. He’s been exhibiting powers that I can’t explain and I fear for his life. For mine and Emily’s. I’m sending him away with the Gunmen for his own protection. I don’t even know if you’re alive, but I have to believe you are. I told them to try and find you, since I think they’re the only ones who can. If they do, you need to take care of William. Emily and I will follow as soon as it’s safe. _

_ Please tell me if you receive this email, Mulder. I need to know everything will be okay. I need to know William will be safe. _

_ Scully _

 

_ 12/31/01, 1:57 am _

_ from: queequeg0925@hotmail.com _

_ to: georgehale@mail.com _

_ They have William. They have our son. Mulder, please answer my emails. I need you. William needs us. Please. _

 

_ 1/2/02, 3:00 pm _

_ from: queequeg0925@hotmail.com _

_ to: georgehale@mail.com _

_ Are you alive? Are you alive? Are you alive? _

 

_ 1/3/02, 2:30 am _

_ from: queequeg0925@hotmail.com _

_ to: georgehale@mail.com _

_ Mulder, _

_ William is safe. The cult is dead. I'm headed home with him and Monica.  _

_ I don't know if you're dead or alive. I want to believe you're alive, that we'll be together again. I don't know if it's safe to contact you. If you're reading this, just know that the kids and I are safe and we miss you every day.  _

_ Scully  _

///

She drinks William in, refusing to leave his side. “I’m never leaving you alone again,” she whispers to the top of his head outside of the car. The charred ground is far away now, he’s finally safe, and she has her gun ready for anyone who ever tries to hurt him again.

She and Monica get a hotel room halfway home and she holds the baby to her chest while she calls her mother. “Mom, it's me,” she says, and her responding, “Dana?” is absolutely terrifying - it comes out shaky and thin and tear-choked. “William's okay,” she rushes to add. “I've got him here with me, he's just fine…” She's crying again. 

“Oh, Dana,” her mother says, and starts crying herself.

Scully wipes her cheeks, tucking the receiver between her ear and shoulder and cradling William. He smiles up at her, kicking at the non-smoky blanket that Monica had found in her trunk and Scully had wrapped him in gratefully. She rocks him back and forth.

Through the receiver she hears a small, scared, “Grandma?”

Her mother sniffs. “Here, talk to your daughter.”

There's a rustling before Emily's trembling breaths come through the line. “Emily,” Scully says softly.

“Is… Will-” Emily is interrupted by a series of hysterical hiccups. 

“Will’s okay,” she says quickly. “He's just fine.”

Emily hiccups again. “Really?”

“Yes, he's right here.” Her finger traces the small length of William's foot and he gurgles happily, all of his distress melted away. She positions the receiver so that Emily can hear his babbling. She hears Emily laugh a little and say hi.

“Will you be home soon?” Emily asks when Scully lifts the phone back to her ear. 

“Yes,” Scully says. “Tomorrow, probably.” 

They get home the next day and go straight to Maggie’s house, and Scully lets her mother hold the baby and sob while she bends down to give Emily a tight hug. Her daughter grabs onto her t-shirt and doesn't let go. 

That night, Scully moves the crib back into her room and lets Emily sleep with her, just so she can know they are both safe. No one can sleep so they end up watching old movies in bed all night. William sits in her lap the whole time, one hand closed around Mulder's old doll. Emily curls on her side, watching the TV mutely. Scully strokes their heads every now and then to make sure they are real.

///

Emily's Christmas break is already over, but Scully doesn't let her go back to school. Aside from brief, punctuated visits to the hospital to check on Doggett, the three of them stay home in pajamas and don't do much. Scully calls in sick to her job for a week before tendering her resignation. They have Mulder's money to get by on. She is not letting this happen again, never again. She keeps her own gun locked in her bedside table and Mulder's within a few feet at all time. “You know not to touch a gun, right?” she asks Emily one day at lunch.

She swallows a bite of her sandwich and nods. “Do you have that gun so you can protect Will?” she asks, side-eyeing it suspiciously. 

Scully nods. “And you.” She doesn't see the point in lying. “I'm not going to let anything happen to you ever again.”

Emily doesn't reply, but she gets down from her seat and rounds the table to hug her tightly around the waist. 

After two weeks, Emily's principal calls. “We're concerned about Emily's absences,” she says. “This many aren't good for her learning curve.”

“She's sick,” Scully says blatantly. (She's not ready to not know where Emily is for hours on end during the day.)

When she hangs up the phone Emily is staring at her, chin resting on her arms. “Am I ever going to go back to school, Mom?” she asks.

“Yes,” Scully says, though she's not sure. “Eventually.”

Emily juts her lower lip out. “I hate it here,” she says, quietly. “Mulder's gone and it's boring and I can't even go to school.”

Scully bites her lip hard. “It's for your own good, sweetie.” 

Emily stares at her for a minute before dropping to the ground and stalking off into her room. Scully doesn't follow. She doesn't know what she could say to make her feel better.

Emily doesn’t go back to school until near the end of January. Scully, still staying home with William, helps her do a stack of homework to catch up. She stays on edge the entire time Emily is gone.

Mulder never answers her emails. She doesn't know what it means. He's managed to get something through for every holiday they've had thus far, but when her birthday comes she doesn't receive anything. She doesn't start to worry until then. 

///

The Gunmen don't die. They've received their share of threats, discrepancies with their newspaper, overall muddled life, so they fake their deaths. (“Easier to fight from the underground,” Frohike says, waggling his eyebrows.) After their false funeral, the three of them come to the apartment for what Langly and Frohike have called “The Last Meal”. Byers holds William gingerly on the couch while Frohike and Langly play cards on the rug with Emily. 

“He looks like his father,” Langly says over dinner. “William.”

(Emily looks surprised, stares at Will intensely to try and discern a resemblance.)

“I agree,” Scully says softly. (She can almost forget about Mulder if she doesn't think too hard. Can almost have a normal life. She feels like she has finally fulfilled the traitor role she was shoved into when she thinks that.)

She feeds William a spoonful of pureed carrots and he makes a face, yanking his face away in disgust. “Understandable, little man,” Frohike says seriously to the baby. 

“I have a feeling he'll be a handful someday,” Byers says to Scully. 

Scully scoops up more carrots, strokes the top of William's head. “I think so, too.” He has a mischiefness in his eyes that reminds her of Mulder when they used to get in trouble with Skinner. 

Frohike and Langly are watching the baby with a sense of nostalgia on their faces. She thinks they miss Mulder almost as much as she and Emily do. 

The three of them take turns hugging Scully at the door. She feels an overwhelming wave of nostalgia. “I'll miss you guys,” she says thickly. 

“We'll miss you, too,” Langly says. “You're the hottest chick we've ever hung out with.” Frohike elbows him. “Ow, hey!”

“We're meeting Suzanne,” Byers says softly. “We'll see if she has any information on Mulder.”

“Thank you.” Scully offers the trio a watery smile. “We'll see each other again,” she promises. “The kids and I are going to find Mulder and we'll meet you someday.”

“Call us and we'll give you tips on how to be a fugitive,” Frohike jokes. He slips a slip of paper in her hand. “It's a firewalled chatroom,” he adds in a covert voice. “Go there if you ever need to talk. Far as I can tell, the gov can't find it.”

Scully nods, folding it and slipping it in her pocket. She takes turns hugging them again before they slip out of the door and down the hall. 

///

Scully never believes that the strange man is Mulder. It's undeniably obvious in a way she can't quite explain. Still, Doggett is firm in his theory. The man scoops up William and soothes his crying, and Scully takes him back and he claims to know that Mulder's in pain. He asks to hold William and Emily snaps a sharp, “ _ No _ !” from the door.

Scully turns. “Emily…” she begins, intending to tell her that she should be in bed. 

“He's a liar!” She crosses her arms and glares at the man. “And he's not Mulder, Uncle John,” she adds. “I  _ know. _ ”

Scully turns back to look at the man. He's looking at Emily strangely. He doesn't say anything. She passes the baby to Monica and steps towards the man. “We're going to talk and you're going to tell me what you know,” she says sharply. “And  _ not  _ in my apartment. I won't do that to my kids.”

Monica agrees to stay back with the kids while Scully and Doggett drive the man back to the FBI. (She doesn't technically have access, but Skinner promises to cover for them.) In the interrogation room the truth comes out after a great deal of questions: he is Jeffrey Spender and he says he doesn't know where Mulder is, that he never saw him in the first place. “Let me see William,” he insists. “I can help him.”

“ _ How  _ can you help him?” Scully snaps. 

“I can't tell you that,” Spender says.

She sets her hand down with enough force to call it a smack, clanging against the table so hard her palm stings. “Then you don't touch my son,” she says, steely. “Or my daughter. You stay away from them both. Stay away from all of us.” She turns and walks out of the interrogation room, Doggett hot on her heels. 

“They'll always be in danger!” Spender shouts. Scully lets the door slam behind them. She knows, she's known for years now. 

Doggett lets Spender go the next day. He refuses to tell what he knows about Mulder. Scully suspects he was lying all along. 

///

William is crawling around the living room when she gets the call. Emily is lying on her stomach on her floor, watching him go. Scully is smiling and considering getting the video camera out - she's been filming and taking pictures as little as possible out of guilt - when the phone rings. “Hello?” she asks, tucking the phone between her ear and shoulder and opening the closet to look for the camera. 

“Scully?” Skinner says. 

“Hello, sir,” she says out of habit, though she's not an FBI agent anymore. “Can I call you back later? It's kind of a bad time.”

“Scully, we found him.”

The box she was easing off of the shelf crashes to the ground. Startled, William starts to wail. 

Scully grips the phone with one hand and the side table with the other. “Where is he?” she says sharply. “Is he alive?”

“Scully…”

“ _ Where is he? _ ” 

“Mom?” She turns to see Emily holding a crying William. She looks scared.

“He's in prison,” Skinner says. “Federal prison.”

Scully grips the table harder. “I have to find someone to take care of the kids. I'll meet you there in an hour and a half.”

Skinner doesn't argue. She expected him to, but he doesn't. “I'll call and let them know we're coming.”

She hangs up the phone, dropping it on the couch. Her fingers are numb.

“Mom?” Emily repeats. She is struggling to hold William now that he's bigger; Scully scoops him up and makes soft soothing sounds. He grabs onto her hair, and she welcomes the soft pain. “Mom, is Mulder here? Where is he?”

She smooths her hair back with one hand. “I'm going to go see him, honey,” she says quietly.

“Is he okay? Can I see him?”

“Not right now.” She strokes her hair again before balancing Will on her hip and turning away to call Doggett and Monica. 

“I want to see him!” Emily almost shouts. Her face is almost red, little fists balled by her side. She looks close to a crying jag, or a temper tantrum. 

_ Me too,  _ she thinks, blinking hard. “I'll bring him home,” she says tensely instead. “As soon as I can.”

“It's not  _ fair _ ,” she says in some repetition of when she'd found out he left in the first place. Almost a year now, Jesus. 

“Nothing about this is fair, Emily,” she says, sharply so she doesn't shout. She turns away again, reaching for the phone. “Nothing.”

Behind her, Emily's footsteps retreat sharply before her bedroom door slams. William sobs, head lolling against her shoulder. She tries not to cry. “Something's going to change,” she whispers to William's head, swaying back and forth to try and calm them both. “It's going to get better. I promise.”

///

_ What are you thinking? _ they've asked him, and he thought,  _ About my kids, about their mother,  _ but he hasn't said it, not yet. He thinks they might take the kids away if he does, and maybe it's a displaced emotion but it's happened before. They came for Emily, all those years ago, and then they came for William. He hadn't known about them kidnapping his son until a few days ago. Gibson had printed out the emails he'd hid from Mulder, before he left, and he'd been furious, especially after reading them. (He'd had to hold back from shouting at Gibson  _ how the hell could you do this  _ even though he knows the kid was just trying to protect him, because fuck, he'd thought Scully was too mad to email when in reality she'd been saving his son and thinking that he was dead or at least an asshole who abandoned them.) They'd gone after his daughter years ago, and now they've gone after his son, and they will keep coming. So he says nothing. Maybe they'll think he doesn't care.

He said nothing and they kicked him in the sides and shouted things that ran together like syrup until they were just nonsense in his head, so he hasn't mentioned them since. He knows Scully will come, eventually, but maybe they won't let her in. If he acts like he doesn't care, they can't use the kids or Scully against him. And once he gets out of here, they'll disappear. 

(He is not brainwashed but he repeats their mantra like he is.)

Scully comes three days after he's committed, and he manages to be surprised and not surprised at all in one breath. (He'd thought she might be mad at him when he'd realized what she's been through. When he flipped through the printed emails on the bus, large sunglasses pulled down over his face, the horror had washed over him like cold water; he'd ignorantly thought they'd be okay and instead they'd been going through hell. Scully might hate him, must hate him for not replying when she was begging him for reassurance. He already hates himself enough for the both of them. But when she says his name, her voice is warm and shaking and full of relief.)

“Mulder,” she says.

“Dana,” he says calmly, maintaining his act of “Brainwashed Individual (Who's Protecting His Family)”. He’s never been a good actor, but he can try.

She wraps both arms around him tightly, hugging him close. “Oh my god,” she whispers, awed, in his ear, and he hugs her back, allows himself this small moment. Almost a year since he walked out of their apartment, since he kissed her forehead and walked away. He's missed her like air. Scully kisses his cheek lingeringly.

When she pulls away, he gives her a strange look. It's partially for the cameras he thinks are in the cell somewhere, partially as a code.  _ This is not the normal channels, Scully. They're doing this all on purpose. I'm worried about the kids.  _ “You okay?” he asks casually - a genuine question: god, he wants to pull her into his arms and hold her and not let go. 

“Am I okay?” she says softly. “Mulder, I haven't seen you in such a long time.” She reaches up and touches his face gently. “I was so worried.”

There's so many things he wants to tell her and none of them can be said here. Not while they are listening. “Well, it's okay, I'm all right,” he says, deliberately stilted and awkward (well, more so than usual, at least). She'll understand. He hopes she understands. “They're treating me really well in here.”

Her hand moves down to his chest. Her face shifts; she understands. “What's happened to you?”

“Nothing; I'm squared away.” Skinner is watching them with a funny look on his face. “Oh, hey, Walter. It's good to see you, man,” he adds. (If this doesn't clue them in, nothing will.)

“Have they told you what the charges are, Mulder?” Skinner says in his familiarly gruff way. “What you're doing here?”

“Oh, yeah, yeah. We're clear on that,” he says lightly.

“You're clear on what?” Scully says incredulously. 

“My crimes.”

Scully looks worried. “Mulder…” she starts.

He cuts her off. “I murdered a man, Dana. I went looking for something that didn't exist, and I... I made a terrible mistake. I should be punished severely.”

“Whatever you were doing you have the right to a lawyer,” Skinner says. “To an inquiry and process of law.”

“I don't think you heard me,” Mulder says. He meets Scully's eyes.  _ Please hear me, Scully,  _ he thinks.  _ You know me.  _

“All right - time's up,” the guard snaps from outside. 

“We're going to get you out of here,” Scully says softly.

“And why is that? I'm a guilty man.”

The guard says something else about time being up, but he hardly hears over the weight of Scully's stare. She looks almost horrified. “Mulder, the kids…” she starts. 

“Uh, excuse me,” he says, cutting her off again and turning towards the window. He hates this, hates them. He thinks about Emily and William on the day he left and stares determinedly at the window. He can feel the weight of Scully's gaze against his back until her heels indicate her exit of the room. 

Mulder converses quietly with Krycek’s ghost until the guards take him back to his cell - his  _ real  _ cell, not the sun-lit one he was put in for show. When they return to the dingy, dark room, the guard leads him far into the cell and doesn't let go of his arm right away. Mulder turns to look at him, and the man shoves at his jaw until he's looking away. “I don't know if you care about Dana Scully's children or not,” he says harshly. “But someone sure as hell does.” Something small and white flutters from his hand and into a dirty puddle. The guard squeezes his arm. “Might want to consider that, in the future,” he says before turning away and slamming the door, leaving Mulder alone in darkness. A small sliver of light is all he has left.

He turns and bends to scoop up the wet picture and holds it up to the dim light. It's a clearly covert shot of Emily and William curled up on the couch. William's half-asleep in Scully's lap, his hand curled around one finger and dressed in a UFO onesie that makes his heart clench. Scully's face is out of the frame but her arm is curled gently around William. Emily is curled into her side, wet hair and a Knicks t-shirt that is Scully's now, originally his. She looks taller; Jesus, how long has he been gone. The picture is taken through the apartment window; God, he knew the balcony was a mistake. 

He collapses against the wall, sliding into a sitting position and pressing his forehead into his knees. The photo crumples a little in his hand but he won't let go of it for anything. 

///

They come to his cell later, Scully and Skinner. He's turned away from them when they enter, but Scully's half-terrified, “Mulder?” forces him to turn around. 

“Walter, good to see you again. Can you give us a moment?” he says uneasily.

Skinner looks a little astonished, but he nods and steps into a corner of the cell politely. 

Scully approaches him near the window, whispering, “Mulder, what…”

He cups her face with both hands and covers her mouth with his. She relaxes, wrapping her arms around his neck. They kiss for a long moment, wrapped up in each other. Scully kisses his cheek before burying her head in his shoulder. 

“Scully, I'm so sorry,” he whispers into her hair.

She chuckles softly and bitterly into his shoulder. “For what?”

“For everything. Leaving.” He grabs her hand in his and presses a kiss to the back of it. “For what happened in the cell yesterday.”

She pulls away, face full of confusion. “I thought you were… trying to tell me something,” she says slowly. “About this place, about what they've been doing to you.”

“I was.” He smooths her hair back with his free hand. “And I was trying to protect the kids. I didn't know if they were working for the people who’ve been… pursuing them.” He takes a sharp breath, pulling out the photo. “The guard gave me this after and told me to behave.”

Scully pales a little, her eyes slipping closed. “I've seen plenty of proof,” she says softly. “But it never stops hurting.” She takes a sharp breath, clutching at his fingers. “God, I never knew… how could I not know?”

Mulder squeezes her hand. “I'm sorry about the emails,” he whispers back. “I'm so sorry. I was trying to keep you safe by breaking contact… but I would've replied when I got the news about… about William being taken. Gibson hid the emails, I didn't see them until I told him I was leaving. I'm so sorry, I would've come home.”

She keeps her eyes closed, leaning into him. “I've been so scared,” she says. “I never stopped being scared. God, Mulder, I'm still scared. You're on trial for your  _ life. _ ”

He strokes the length of her back gently. “I wouldn't call it a trial,” he replies bitterly. “It's a trap, the whole goddamn thing is rigged.”

“Yeah, I don't think you understand the seriousness of the charges,” Skinner says from the corner, speaking for the first time in minutes. He approaches them, continuing, “This isn't some routine wrist slapping. It's like Scully said, Mulder, this is life or death.”

“My trial's a forgone conclusion. What they really want is for me to admit my guilt and help them out. What's really on trial here is the truth.”

“Mulder, they're saying you killed a man,” Scully says. She steps back to look him in the eye, smoothing her wrinkled blazer with shaking hands. 

“Have they produced a body?” Mulder replies. Silence; Skinner and Scully exchange a look. “You can't produce a body because you can't kill a man who won't die,” he says, hating his stubbornness but knowing how necessary it is. 

It's decided, somehow, that Skinner will represent Mulder. Doggett.and Reyes enter to tell them that the body has been found, and Scully covers her face in defeat. Mulder reaches down and slips his fingers through hers in some small attempt at comfort. He wants to tell her it'll be okay, but of course he has no idea. 

She looks up at him, face shifting into steely determination. “We  _ have _ to win,” she says softly. “For the kids, and for us.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for events of the truth

They don't win. 

Scully visits Mulder's cell right before the trial to see him in private for the first time in months. She tries to bring Emily, but they refuse to let a seven-year-old see a purported murderer so she goes on her own and holds him on the dirty floor and fills him in on the past eleven months (only the happy parts; she leaves out the kidnapping and the fear and the blood on the floor). She testifies at his trial and tries to stay for the rest of it, but they won't let her. 

When she gets out of the prison, she finds several messages on her cell phone. Emily's school has called her because Emily's gotten into a fight. 

The principal gives Scully a weary, irritable look when she comes into the office; she's resented her ever since she took Emily out of school for a month for no clear reason. Emily slumps in the chair next to the boy she punched and his mother, nursing a black eye and bruised knuckles. The boy is holding an ice pack to his swelled bloody nose and the mother is ranting about the possibility of it being broken. If Mulder were here, he'd make a joke about Emily inheriting her fighting skills from her mother. Scully apologizes to the mother and the principal, makes Emily apologize to the kid, and shuffles her out of the office. She has to serve a three-day suspension that Scully plans to make permanent, more or less; if things go the way she hopes, Mulder will be found not guilty and they'll be leaving Virginia soon.

“Hey, hold up,” she says sternly outside when Emily tries to go straight to the car. She motions for Emily to sit down on a bench outside the playground and kneels in front of her. “What were you  _ thinking _ , Emily? You know better.” 

“You punch people all the time,” Emily mutters, poking the empty space where she lost her first tooth with her tongue.

She's a little stunned. “Only when they're dangerous or hurting me or someone I love. And the principal told me that Jason punched you  _ after _ you punched him, so it’s definitely not the same thing.”

Emily pokes her bruise. “It hurts,” she says in a small voice.

“We'll put some ice on it when we get home, but consider it your temporary punishment. Now, do you want to tell me why you punched someone? Did he say something mean?”

Emily’s lip quivers, just a little bit. “Yes.”

“What did he say?”

She rubs her purple-black knuckles. After she's been mad for an appropriate amount of time, Scully is going to teach her how to punch; with the lives they've led thus far, it seems like an important skill. “His dad is a soldier who's guarding Mulder at the prison,” she says finally, worrying her lower lip between her small teeth. “He said…” She sniffles. “When he found out Mulder was my dad, he told me that they were gonna kill him because that's what happens to people who kill soldiers.”

Scully understands in an instant. “Sweetie, c’mere.” Emily hugs her stiffly, probably indicating that she is still mad. Scully hugs her back tightly, rubbing her back. 

“Did Mulder really kill someone?” Emily mumbles into her shoulder. “A soldier?” 

Scully bites her lip. “No, sweetie,” she says.  _ You can't kill a man who won't die,  _ Mulder had said. “They think he did, but he didn't. You don't ever have to worry about that, okay? Your father is a good man.”

Emily sniffles. “Then why do they wanna kill him?”

“Listen,” she says softly when she pulls back, tipping Emily's chin up to look her in the eye. “That was really mean of Jason to say, but you can't just punch other kids because they say something mean to you. You can punch people, but  _ only  _ if they're physically hurting you or someone you love. That's when you punch and kick and scream. All the rules go out the window then.”

Emily wipes her nose with the back of her hand. “Like Will. I'll use my fists to protect Will.”

“Screaming is the most important. Remember that.” Scully hugs her again before standing and heading to the car. Emily trails after her, staring at the ground. She'll stop and get Emily some ice at a gas station; home is too far away. “No books for the rest of today or tomorrow, okay?”

Emily nods. She looks up nervously. “Mom, Jason was lying, wasn't he? They're not going to kill Mulder, are they?”

_ What kind of person tells their first-grade kid that? _ she thinks, and then remembers she is in no place to judge, since she brought her kids into this shitty life they lead. “Yes,” she says, and she's not lying. “He was.” 

She'll make sure he doesn't die. They can't take that, not when their little family is already crumbled at the seams. Emily won't look her in the eyes anymore if Mulder dies, will resent her for a long time, and William will grow up with questions about who his father was, why there are no pictures of them together. Maybe he'll resent her, too. She can't take it; she's loved Mulder catastrophically for too long now. This is one of the things she can't save him from. 

She visits Mulder in his cell that is too dark for time to matter the next morning before the next session of his trial. The first thing he says is, “I know what you want and I can't give it to you,” and she's immediately filled with some unexplainable rage about the fact that he won't confide in her. Still, maybe he'll save himself. If not for her, then for their kids.

“Make them a deal, Mulder. Guilty on a lesser charge. Maybe they'll go for it and they'll let you walk out of here,” she says tightly, balling her hands into fists in her blazer pockets. She's been dressing like she's still an FBI agent (and not a practically single mother who resigned to protect her kids and carries a gun everywhere over her desperately un-FBI jeans) like it'll make the guards, the committee judging whether or not Mulder should live, take her seriously.

“I'd rather die, Scully,” he says, and it's like a slap in the face. 

“How can you say that?” she snarls. “How can you say that, Mulder? To  _ me. _ When we have kids together who are waiting for their father to come home! Goddamnit, all you could talk about was not wanting to leave them, and now you can't save your life for them?  _ Fuck _ you.”

He flinches, to his credit, looking down at his white prison shoes. But he continues, quietly: “Because this is greater than you or me. This is about everything we worked for for nine years. The truth that we both sacrificed so much to uncover and to expose.”

She kneels to meet his eyes. “Well, then, expose it, Mulder!” she snaps. “Take the stand. Whatever it is that you're withholding take the stand and hit them full force.” 

“I can't.”

Fuck his martyr complex, his self-sacrificing personality. He can't do this anymore, not with everything at stake. “Why?” she says tightly.

“I just can't.”

Something twists in her stomach. “You say this is greater than us, and maybe it is, but this is us fighting this fight, Mulder, not you,” she says in a dangerously quiet voice. “It's you and me. That's what I'm fighting for, Mulder. You and me.  _ Our  _ family.” She bites her lip to keep more, nastier things from floating to the surface:  _ you should've backed out a long time ago if you didn't want this, you bastard, no one made you stay and love me and my daughter but you did and now we can't do this without you. You selfish fuck.  _

Mulder just shakes his head. He won't look her in the eye.

She leaves. She feels slightly sick. 

///

Gibson Praise testifies at Mulder's trial and Doggett brings him to stay at Scully's after. Years ago, she'd looked at Gibson and thought of Emily, and now he stands in front of her, a gangly teenager, while Emily stares warily at him over William's head. “I guess you heard the trial didn't go well today,” Doggett says. 

Scully curses under her breath, and then remembers Gibson. “Sorry.”

“I've heard worse,” Gibson says mildly. Living with Mulder for months, she's not surprised. 

She nods, pressing her sharp fingernails into the palm of her hand. Part of her wants to yell at him for hiding her emails. “Come on in, make yourself at home,” she says instead. “We have cable TV. I don't guess you got a lot of that where you were.”

He looks her seriously in the eye. “Mulder's scared,” he says. “He's afraid of not coming home to you. He wanted me to tell you that.”

She nods and says nothing. She doesn't trust whatever she'd say. Gibson nods back and enters the apartment awkwardly, going to join Emily and William in the living room.

At the kitchen table, Doggett gives her a recap of what happened in the day’s portion of the trial. “He's doomed, isn't he,” Scully says softly. “There's no way to save him.”

Silence for a moment. Behind them, she can hear Gibson and Emily argue over the TV. “Why do we have to watch this?” Gibson asks, and Emily responds, “I like it, and it's my house, anyway.” Their voices along with the white noise of the TV provide a quiet lull in the background of the treacherous thoughts in Scully’s head.

“I don't believe that, Dana,” Doggett says. “Monica and I are going to testify to everything we know. Mulder still has a few good chances. We can still save him.”

She's so tired she can barely think straight. She rests her head on the table and says nothing.

///

The next night, Doggett babysits the kids while Scully and Monica go to autopsy Knowle Rohrer. She gets the evidence, brings it to the trial, but it's dismissed and she's dragged out. She thinks whatever hope she had left stays behind. She thinks Mulder could use it. 

She goes home and waits for the verdict. Doggett and Monica come with her. Emily and Gibson have formed something of a tense, strange friendship, and are playing cards at the kitchen table, punctuated by frequent bickering. Monica plays with William on the floor, stacking lettered blocks into nonsense words. Doggett paces the tiled kitchen floor uneasily. Scully sits motionless on the couch. She blames temporary paralysis. All she can picture is worse-case-scenarios. It's a learned and hated habit. 

The phone rings, a shrill knife cutting through the noise of the room. Emily goes back to what she’s doing easily; Scully hasn’t told her what they’re waiting for. Monica looks down back at William. Doggett picks up the phone. Scully stares at him, unable to move. Behind them, Emily says, “Raise you five cents,” but she can feel Gibson watching them. Unlike Emily, he knows what's going on. Like Emily, he cares about Mulder.

“Yeah,” Doggett says, gruffly. Regrettably. Pauses, says, “I'll tell her.” He hangs up. The only sounds are Emily shuffling the card and William gurgling on the ground, making nonsensical sounds. Doggett doesn't look at her.

“Who was it?”

“Skinner,” Doggett says, and stops. 

“Agent Doggett?” God, her voice sounds unfamiliar to her. Who is she, now? Who is she? What can she do?

Finally, he turns to look at her. “Death by lethal injection.” He says it quietly, like that'll change something. Soften the blow, the goddamn truck running her down.

Monica looks up in horror. Oblivious, William grabs for a block - M - with his chubby fingers. Oblivious, Emily yells, “You're totally cheating, you read my mind!” at Gibson. Scully doesn't feel real. 

She disintegrates a little, muffling her sobs with her palm. Monica reaches for her, but she stumbles to her feet and towards the bathroom. She doesn’t want Emily to see her cry. She slams the door behind her, grabbing a towel and pressing her face into it. 

It’s finally silent outside. “What happened?” Emily asks, stunned. Scully pushes the cotton hard against her face. God, she can’t tell her, she can’t comfort her when she herself is falling apart. How the hell is she supposed to do this. 

There’s a polite tap at the door. “Dana?” Monica asks softly. “It’s me. Please let me in.” 

Scully ignores her. She feels like she’s going to collapse. She slides down the wall, leaning heavily against the wallpaper Mulder had said he hated the day they’d looked at the apartment (she’d said,  _ That’s not exactly a deal breaker _ ,  _ Mulder _ , and squeezed his hand when he pouted). She sits there for a long time. 

Outside, she can hear Monica sending Emily to bed. “What’s wrong with Mom?” she asks, sounding small, and Monica tells her that it’ll be okay. But she doesn’t tell her what’s wrong. 

Scully sits crumpled on the floor, twisting the towel between her fingers. Her stomach hurts. She wonders how hard it is to break someone out of federal prison. 

She stands, finally, on shaky legs and stumbles out of the bathroom into the living room. Doggett, Monica, and Gibson’s heads all snap up in unison. “Dana?” Doggett asks tentatively.

Scully sniffs, wiping her cheek. “I’m not giving up,” she says. “It’s not over until he’s gone. And I’m not letting him go.” Doggett and Monica look a little dumbfounded, but she continues. “I’ve had bags packed for the kids since he left. I’m ready to leave.”

///

He’d known the verdict was coming, but that hadn’t made it any easier to hear. His stomach had twisted like he was going to vomit, and all he could think about was how he was never going to see Scully and Emily and William again. He hadn’t even known his son for more than three days before he’d left; what kind of father is he? He fucked up and now he’s going to die and there’s no way to save them from what he knows is coming in ten years. He can’t save anyone. 

He’s going to tell her, he decides, because he knows she will come. Just yank her up against him and hold her and say,  _ The world’s going to end, Scully, and you and the kids need to be ready. December 21, 2012. Don’t stop fighting. _ He’s going to tell her because even if they are listening, he has nothing to lose: they are going to kill him. He wants to tell her, but as soon as he sees her slumping form, the words dry up in his mouth. He is a goddamn coward and always had been, but oh god, how can he tell her?

Scully doesn’t say much when she comes. He isn’t sure if it’s because she’s mad or speechless. He crushes her against him, whispers, “I’m sorry” into her hair repeatedly and run-together until all of his words sound like nonsense, gibberish. He thinks he cries. She holds him on the floor of his dark cell and rocks him back and forth. He holds her, tries to memorize her, inhales her shampoo scent. He whispers apologies into her neck and she runs her hand up and down his back. 

There’s a sharp rap on the door. He kisses her before they stand up, long and fierce. “I love you,” he whispers. “I’m so sorry.” 

“It’s okay,” she whispers back. “It’s okay.” She thumbs his wrist, kisses his forehead gently. She presses a sheath of photos of Emily and William paper-clipped together into his hand. “It’s going to be okay,” she says again, in a way he can’t misunderstand. She smooths his hair back. “I love you.” 

///

She sat Emily down, the night before, and asked her what she’d be willing to do so they could be a family again. “Anything,” Emily said immediately, fixing the barrette in her hair. 

“Would you leave Virginia? Would you leave this apartment and never come back to it? Never go to school here again?” 

Emily chewed her peeling-pink-nail-polish nail nervously. “Yeah,” she said finally. “Like… moving away?”

“Sort of,” Scully said. “And you’re telling me you’d be okay with that.”

She nodded. “I want things to be like they were before,” she said, and that was enough for Scully.

She’s packed bags for the kids - changes of clothes, toiletries, some of William’s toys and a pacifier, some of Emily’s favorite books - and has them waiting by the door the day of Mulder’s jail break. Monica’s agreed to take them over to her mother’s for the night. (Scully had thanked her for everything she’s done for them - “Words aren’t enough, Monica, I swear…” - and Monica had given her a hug and said she was glad to have a chance to say goodbye to the kids, and glad to help her in whatever way she could, she’d been a good friend.)  For herself, she packs the bare minimum of what she needs: clothes, toiletries, her father's copy of  _ Moby Dick _ . She wraps her gun in a t-shirt and hides it under her folded jeans. She takes all of the keys off of her key ring, but keeps the Apollo 11 chain on. She straps her holster on under her coat and slips Mulder's gun into it. 

Emily goes to school for the first day since her suspension and Gibson settles in front of the TV, eating Cheetos and watching a marathon of  _ The Simpsons _ . Scully spends the day with William. They sit together on the floor of his room, the one Mulder and Emily had painted. “I want you to remember this,” she tells him, though she knows he won't.

“Ga,” William replies, grabbing a handful of her hair. She assumes this is some sort of sound of agreement. 

When Emily gets home, she gets a box of graham crackers and eats at the counter. Damn, they'll have to do something about the food. Scully shakes some fish food into the tank and goes to sit across from Emily. “Listen, sweetie, you and Will are gonna go to your grandmother's for a night or two, okay?”

Emily dunks a graham cracker in her glass of milk. “What about you?” she asks, eyeing the suitcases by the door. 

Scully shakes her head. “No, I'm not going. I'm going to be… getting things together so we can leave.”

Emily pokes the empty space of her new tooth, crumbling the graham cracker between her fingers. “Is it dangerous?” she asks, hushed. 

Scully shakes her head. 

She smushes the cracker beneath her fingers. “I don't believe you.”

“Em, honey…” Scully rounds the counter and pushes back her hair.

She sniffles. “I'm sorry I've been mad at you, Mom. Please let me come with you.”

“Oh, sweetie.” She pulls her daughter into her embrace, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “We're not leaving you behind. We're going to come get you as soon as it's safe, me and Mulder. We're going to be together again, like we were before. It's gonna be fine.”

Emily presses her face into Scully's shoulder, tears soaking into her coat. “I'm sorry,” she hiccups. “I love you, I don't hate you. Even though I said it that one time and you didn't hear me, I didn't mean it.”

She strokes Emily's hair soothingly, rocking her back and forth. “It's okay,” she whispers. “I know, sweetie, I know. It's all going to be better soon.”

Emily sniffles again. Scully holds her until there's a knock at the door. “I think that's Aunt Monica,” she says, tucking a strand of hair back. “Why don't you go let her in?” Emily nods, wiping her cheeks and jumping off the stool to go open the door. 

Scully goes to get William, lifting him up out of the crib. “Mamamama,” he babbles. 

She kisses his head. “It's okay.” 

She carries William down to Monica's car and straps him in, kissing him first and then Emily. “I love you both,” she says. “I want you to spend lots of time with Grandma tonight because it'll be a while before we see her again, okay?”

Emily nods her consent, chewing her thumbnail. “Are we ever coming back here?”

Scully tells them the truth: “No.”

Emily nods seriously and leans up to kiss her on the cheek. “See you tomorrow, Mom. I love you. Tell Mulder I love him, too.” 

Gibson is waiting in the kitchen when she comes up. “You're a good mom,” he says, not turning to look at her. He's eating a messily-made sandwich and looking at the fridge. She's pinned up pictures of the kids and Emily's scribbly drawings and the picture of her and Mulder at a crime scene that she'd collected from his office the day after he left and mailed in his resignation. 

“Thank you,” Scully says, dropping her house key on the counter.  _ Although I’m not, _ she adds silently, temporarily forgetting the mind reading thing.

Gibson turns to look at her. “My parents wanted me to be a perfect little chess prodigy,” he says. “You know why you've never met them? Because they didn't stay around when things got tough. I haven't talked to them in years because I've been trying to protect them. Isn’t it supposed to be the other way around? Why didn’t they ever come looking for me after all that brain surgery bullshit? Trust me, you're a better mother than that.”

Scully nods awkwardly, swallowing. This kid has been through the wringer, she’s seen it. “Gibson, where are you going when this is over?”

He shrugs, straightening his glasses. “Back to New Mexico, I guess. Or wherever Monica and John decide to take me. One of them mentioned witness protection or whatever.”

“Would you want to… come with us?” 

Gibson shakes his head instantly. “I like Mulder and all, but living with him for longer? No thanks, he’s a terrible roommate.” He takes another large bite of his sandwich, mayonnaise splatting on the floor, and turns back to the fridge. “You need to teach that kid how to play cards, though. She's good, but not great. She needs a better poker face.”

Out of some need for protection, Scully takes Gibson with her to go pick up the new car. She pays in cash for the van, a conspicuous gray: big enough to house a family temporarily, she thinks. “I love the shadiness of all this,” Gibson says, eating Chicken McNuggets with his feet up on the dashboard. “FBI agent prepares to go on the run.”

Scully flips on her turn signal, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. (The upcoming Teenage Years will be interesting in her family, she senses, especially with the Mulder genes as a factor.) “ _ Former _ FBI agent, thank you very much.”

As darkness falls, she calls her mother to check on the kids, packs the car, leaves a Sticky Note on the fish tank that says,  _ Skinner: Mulder wanted you to have the fish. Thank you for everything you've done, sir. We owe you our lives.  _ She pulls her ID and credit cards out of her wallet (having already closed her bank accounts) and cuts them into pieces,  _ Friends  _ style, before flushing them down the toilet. She replaces her ID with several fake ones that the Gunmen made and a new debit card under a fake name that she transferred Mulder's money to. She takes the picture of her and Mulder and a picture of Emily and William on Christmas off of the fridge and folds them before tucking them in her wallet. Gibson hovers anxiously in the doorway, watching her.

When it’s time to leave, Scully lingers in the threshold of the apartment. She's barely been in it a year and a half; she can still see it the way it was on the day they moved in, stacks of cardboard boxes that Emily ducked behind, Mulder's couch shoved haphazardly in the living room, and the way he pushed her up against the counter before he kissed her. Her fingers curl around the door. 

“Scully?” Gibson asks, his voice cracking awkwardly. 

She turns, holding onto her bag tightly. “Okay,” she says. “Let's go.”

She drives them down a dusty road near the prison. They get out of the car and wait. 

Almost fifteen agonizing minutes later, a car approaches and Mulder gets out, nearly running towards her. Something behind her ribs unclenches with relief, then clenches again when she sees who gets out of the car with Skinner and Doggett: Kersh.  _ Oh, God, we're screwed _ , she thinks as she hands Mulder a jacket. It's all over now. She hopes her mom will take good care of William and Emily. “Mulder?” she asks, voice tight with terror. 

“You've got to move out,” Kersh says. 

“What's he doing?” she asks, reaching for his hand. Their fingers brush, and his curl around hers. 

“What I should've done from the start,” Kersh replies. Scully blinks, but she clutches at Mulder's hand and nods.

Mulder nods, too, looking around at the cluster of people on the road.  “None of you will be safe now,” he says.

“You let us worry about that,” Doggett says.

“Good luck,” Monica adds. 

Skinner says nothing, but jerks his head in a way that clearly says  _ go _ .

Scully moves away from Mulder to hug Monica tightly. Behind her, Mulder claps Gibson on the shoulder. Then they turn and climb into the car, Scully in the driver's seat and Mulder beside her, buttoning the jacket closed over the prison uniform. When she starts the car, he touches her arm gently. “Scully,” he says softly. When she turns to look at him, he kisses her messily, hands curling in her hair. “Thank you,” he whispers against her lips. 

She smiles into his mouth, cupping the back of his neck briefly before turning to face front. “We have to go. There's some clothes in the backseat, crawl back there and change when we get far enough away.”

He places his hand over hers on the gear shift. “What about the kids?”

“My mom has them. We're meeting her in a rest area in Maryland at two in the morning.”

He strokes the back of her hand. “Scully, if they catch us…” he says quietly.

“They  _ won't _ ,” she says firmly. “This was our plan all along. We're going to be fine.”

As a response, he kisses her on the cheek, right below her eye. 

///

Once they reach Maryland, Scully pulls off into the woods and they curl around each other on a quilt she'd spread in out the back of the van. After setting a battery-powered alarm clock, Scully falls asleep for a few hours with her head on his shoulder and her hand pressed to his chest. Mulder can't sleep.  He holds her close and watches the stars; he'd missed them in the prison. They looked closer in New Mexico; maybe he should take his family there.

///

Maggie waits with the kids outside a blue-white lit rest area. Mulder's heart seizes a little when they park in the nearly abandoned parking lot; he's seen the pictures, but how the hell did they get so big? William's propped on Maggie’s hip, playing with her cross that matches the one Scully gave Emily. Emily is leaning into her side, a musty jacket that must've belonged to Scully as a kid buttoned over her pajamas. “She's so tall,” he whispers to Scully. “When did she get so tall?”

They climb out of the car and Emily's eyes widen. She barrels towards him, practically shouting, “Mulder!” He manages to catch her clumsily, stumbling back against the car, but he hugs her back gratefully. “I missed you,” Emily sniffles into his shirt. 

“I missed you, too.” He kisses her temple. 

“Are you okay? Where did you go?”

“It's a long story, baby, but I'm okay, I promise.” He hugs her again before lowering her to the ground. 

Scully's approaching with William, whispering quietly to him. “Will, here, look,” she whispers, handing him to Mulder. “It's your dad.”

Mulder holds the baby gingerly, afraid he'll move wrong and this will all melt away. William babbles, wriggling in his arms and pulling at his hair. “Hey, buddy,” he whispers. 

“Isn't he cute?” Emily whispers, still clinging to his side. “He can already stand up, it's so cool!”

He blinks back the burn of tears, kissing the top of William's wispy head. “He looks just like your mother.”

Emily shakes her head, braids hitting her shoulders rhythmically. “Mom says he looks like you.”

Scully is hugging her mother and she motions Mulder and Emily over to say goodbye. Maggie takes turns kissing her daughter and grandchildren. She even kisses Mulder on the cheek, which he's slightly surprised at; he's never been able to deduce whether or not she likes him, and he can't imagine she's too fond of him now, what with the fact that he's taking away her family. “Take care of them, Fox,” she says sternly, and he promises that he will.

After Maggie leaves, driving away with tears shining on her cheek in the streetlight, the kids climb into the car. Scully straps William into his car seat while Mulder helps Emily. They're both exhausted; William falls asleep almost instantly, and Emily's drowsy, head lolling against the back of the heat. “So where are we going now?” she asks sleepily. 

“Anywhere we want, Em,” Mulder says from the driver's seat. Scully grins and grabs his right hand in both of hers. “Anywhere we want.”

///

They drive for hours, shifting between drivers. Emily sleeps for hours, the seat pressing creases in her cheek. They eat breakfast at ten in the morning at another rest area, sitting on top of picnic tables. Emily helps William stand up in the grass, holding onto his small hands. 

Mulder tries to take care of William as much as possible, but his son barely seems to know him. At one point, he reaches for Scully from Mulder's arms. Mulder hands him over, trying not to be hurt - he has been gone for nearly a year, hasn’t he? “It's okay, sweetie,” Scully soothes, trying to get Mulder to take him back but he shakes his head. Emily hugs him, burying her face in his side. 

They drive until they hit Missouri. Scully finds a conspicuous hotel and rents a room. Mulder and the kids settle in the room while Scully runs out to get dinner and hair dye. Emily plays with William on the bed while Mulder sets up the portable crib. When he finally gets it finished, he sighs wearily and comes to sit beside the kids on the bed. “Here, Mulder, hold Will,” Emily says. 

Mulder lifts the baby gingerly and sets him on his lap. William looks somewhat suspicious, but he doesn’t wiggle away.

“Did you see anything cool?” Emily asks, swinging her legs, her feet bumping the side of the bed. “Where’d you go?”

“Not really.” William grabs Mulder’s finger and he smiles a little. “I was in New Mexico. It was boring.”

“Really?”

“Really. Although I have some pictures you might like.” He jiggles his finger a little and Will yanks it to his mouth. “What about you? What's with the black eye?” (He'd asked Scully about it after she'd felt asleep, stomach twisting with nervousness - had someone hurt her when they tried to take William? - and she'd said quickly, “Oh no, it's okay, just a fight at school, it’s nothing”, and relief had washed through him.)

“I helped Mom with William,” she says. “And the black eye is from a stupid fight. I punched a guy, and he punched me back.”

William sinks his tiny teeth into Mulder’s finger and he tries to jar it loose. “Why did you punch him?”

“His dad was guarding you, and he said his dad said they were gonna kill you.” Emily looks down at her dirty sneakers. 

Mulder puts a hand on her small back. “Hey, it's okay, Em. I’m fine.”

She peels back the Velcro on her shoes. “I know.”

“And you shouldn't punch people,” he tries. He pulls his finger free and William scowls at him, grabbing it back; his glare is identical to Scully’s.

“I know, Mom told me. Only if someone's in danger. She had to pay for Jason’s nose. Or maybe not now that we're gone.” Emily grins evilly. 

He's strangely proud, but he obviously can't  _ tell  _ her that. “Come on, kiddo, you know better,” he scolds, tousling her hair.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Emily makes a face. “Mom already lectured me. And then she taught me how to punch in case someone tried to hurt me.”

It might be funny if the situation wasn't so dire, if she hadn't already been in danger or if she won't be in the future. Mulder smooths her rumpled hair from where he mussed it and says nothing. 

“You’re not gonna leave again, are you?” She rests her head against his arm.

“No,” Mulder says, sure of himself for once. “Never again. I promise.”

“Good.”

William is restless, grabbing for Mulder's finger again. Emily points. “Look, he’s saying your name!”

Mulder looks. William is making soft sounds ( _ muh muh muh _ ), but none of any particular dialect. “He’s just making noise, sweetie,” he explains. “Although I’m sure he’ll be talking sooner or later.”

“No,” she insists firmly, in a very Scully tone. “He’s trying to say your name. He tries to say mine all the time.”

Mulder studies William. He supposes that his grunts could somewhat be mistaken for as the first syllable as “Mulder”. But then again, he’d always expected William to call him “Dad”. Emily calls him Mulder, though. Maybe it’s just natural that William would, too. He's not sure how he feels about it; he's been wanting to be called Dad for a long time now.

“Very smart of him,” he says approvingly. “You want to hold him?”

“Sure.” Emily takes William like she has been doing it for years. Mulder feels some small pang of jealousy that a seven-year-old, sister or not, has more experience holding his son than he does.

The door scrapes open, and Mulder moves to shield the kids before he sees the bright color of Scully's hair. “It’sjustme,” she says quickly, free hand rustling plastic bags raised in the air. The other hand is balancing a pizza box. “I brought some dinner.”

“Mom!” Emily moves towards her, arms raised, and hugs her around the waist. William holds his arm up towards his mother, so once she's set the pizza box down, Mulder passes him over before wrapping his arms around both of them. Will tenses at first, but when Scully leans into the embrace, he relaxes against his father's chest. 

“Hi,” Scully says, resting her head on his shoulder. She sounds happier than he's heard her sound since before he left the apartment to meet with Kersh.

He kisses her forehead, reaching down with one hand to tousle Emily's hair again. Emily giggles. William grabs a handful of his t-shirt for traction and holds tight. “Hi.”

///

They eat pizza cross-legged on the bed and watch reruns of  _ Full House,  _ which Emily loves and Mulder feels a bitter resentment towards because he can't stand how happy every damn character on that show is. Still, it's nice. Scully leans against him on their bed with William nestled in her lap. The baby doesn't seem nearly as suspicious of Mulder as before - comfortable, maybe. He amuses himself with Scully's car keys, gnawing on the Apollo 11 keychain. Mulder pretends to grab his nose at one point and Will grabs his finger with both hands. 

Later, Scully disappears into the bathroom to dye her hair brown. “Most people know me with short hair, so I'm going to grow it out as long as possible,” she tells Mulder. (She's not wrong - they're both going shaggier, he's working on his beard.) She cuts Emily's hair in the motel bathroom - to her chin, shorter than it's been the entire time Mulder has known her. When they exit the bathroom, they look like different people. But their smiles are the same. “You look beautiful,” he tells them and means it.

While they're in the bathroom, Mulder plays with William on the bed. Will lies on his stomach on the bed, rolling a toy truck from McDonald's back and forth across the comforter. Mulder watches him quietly. He reaches to stroke his downy head. 

“Listen, buddy,” he says quietly after a minute. “I know I haven't been a very good father so far. Hell, I've messed up a lot with your sister - I left her and your mom to try and save them, and your mom didn't want to forgive me for that one, and that was only a couple days. I left you for a lot longer, and I left them too. And there's no excuses and a million excuses and I know I fucked up.” He clears his throat, eyes darting towards the bathroom door. “Sorry. Screwed up.”

“Fuuuu,” William says, rapping the truck against his forearm.

“You hush,” he says, trying to be stern. “Anyway… William, this is my attempt at apologizing. And reassuring you that I thought about you and Emily and Scully - or Mommy to you - every damn day, and felt guilty about leaving you both. And promising you that I'm never going to leave again, not ever.” He feels awkward, desperately awkward around his eleven-month-old son. It wasn't supposed to happen this way. He waits.

William regards him curiously. “Muh,” he says finally, grabbing the doll - the one Mulder had dug out of the attic and given to Scully - and presenting it to him proudly. 

“Yeah, something like that,” Mulder decides, leaning down to kiss the top of William's head. The boy doesn't squirm away. 

“Very good speech,” Scully says from behind him, leaning down to kiss William as well. Her chemically-scented new brown hair brushes his face when she bends to scoop William up. The baby looks startled at first - probably a reaction to the hair change - but when he sees who it is, he snuggles into her gratefully. Scully kisses Mulder's cheek before taking William towards the crib in the corner. William holds onto the doll with one fist.

“I meant it,” Mulder says. He can't stop watching them. “I thought you should know.”

She doesn't look back, but he can see her smiling. “I know.” 

Emily climbs up beside him on the bed, paperback in hand. “Mom was reading  _ Because of Winn-Dixie _ before we left,” she says. “Can you read some?”

After Emily's been read to and tucked in, after Will has been sung to sleep by a tone-deaf Scully (“He likes it,” she says to Mulder, scowling at his cracks) and tucked in, Mulder and Scully crawl into bed together. She turns towards him, their arms wrapped around the other's shoulders and their foreheads nearly touching. “I missed you,” she whispers. “Thank you for coming with us.”

He kisses her nose. “Are you scared?” he whispers. If they're caught, the two of them will likely be killed and there will be no one protecting Emily and William from the Syndicate’s grasp. And then there's the other thing, what he hasn't told her and doesn't know if he can; how can they save the world, two federal fugitives with two kids under the age of ten? How can he tell her and not have Emily find out? It'll scare her, scare them both. But what if there's something they can do? He thinks about telling her. He thinks,  _ What if there's nothing we can do?  _ Ten years left.

“Right now…” She yawns, resting her forehead against his. “Right now, Mulder, in this moment, I'm the least scared I've ever been.”

It's almost definitely not true but they're safe, for now. Their kids are safe. They have each other. For now, that seems like enough. 

Mulder nuzzles the top of her head. “Maybe there’s hope,” he whispers. 


End file.
